ArmstrapArmstrap is a community of engineers and makers determined to help make ARM prototyping easy and fun.http://armstrap.org/
Fri, 04 Sep 2015 04:06:48 +0000Fri, 04 Sep 2015 04:06:48 +0000Jekyll v2.4.0pyVirtualBench - Controlling Five Instruments from a Single Python Application<p><img src="/img/posts/2015/07/ni-virtualbench-python.jpg" alt="Techshop VirtualBench" class="centered img-responsive" /></p>
<p>Ever wanted to control five instruments from a single python script? pyVirtualBench is a python library that gives to raw access to some pretty powerful engineering tools, all in a single application.</p>
<p>If you’ve walked into a <a href="http://www.techshop.ws">TechShop</a>, you’ve noticed that their electronics labs are outfitted with an interesting instrument at every station. That instrument is National Instrument’s <a href="http://www.ni.com/virtualbench/">VirtualBench</a> and it takes a radically different approach to instrumentation. Rather than buying separate instruments (like a power supply, dmm, scope, function generator, DIO logic analyser), VirtualBench combines these instruments into a single package. Five instruments in one convenient package. That’s not bad.</p>
<p><img src="/img/posts/2015/07/techshop-virtualbench.jpg" alt="Techshop VirtualBench" title="Image courtesy of sfgate.com" class="centered img-responsive" /></p>
<p>There’s already enough <a href="http://www.ni.com/virtualbench/what-is">marketing material</a> on the web so I’m not going to go into the specs of the machine. What I’ll be talking about is the advantage of combining these instruments to get work done that was previously not possible had these instruments been separate boxes.</p>
<p>One of the things that has bugged me for a long time about traditional instruments is the idea that no matter the instrument, they encourage me to do things I don’t want to do. For example, if I needed to do a series of tests on several boards, I don’t want to constantly be fiddling with my instrument’s configuration. And when actually testing my board, I don’t want to constantly look at my display (which can sometimes be several feet away). I want to keep my eyes on the work and my hands on my probes.</p>
<p>Thanks to National Instruments releasing a c-api to their driver, <a href="https://github.com/armstrap/armstrap-pyvirtualbench/tree/master/lib">I wrote a Python wrapper</a> that allows me to easily interface with the VirtualBench instrument.</p>
<p>For this demo, I’m going to be using a simple 3-switch USB foot pedal I purchased on Amazon for about 55 US dollars. Cheaper foot pedals exist, but I really liked the quality of this particular unit. I’ll only be using one of the three switches but I can easily see myself using all three switches to do other things, like perhaps triggering or starting a particular measurement.</p>
<p><img src="/img/posts/2015/07/usb-foot-pedal.jpg" alt="Infinity USB Digital Foot Control" class="centered img-responsive" /></p>
<p>I’ll also be using Google’s Text-to-Speech API to output my measurement to my computer’s speaker.</p>
<p>In my <a href="https://github.com/armstrap/armstrap-pyvirtualbench/blob/master/examples/hands_free_dmm.py">application</a>, I want to do three different kinds of tests: a voltage test, a resistance test and a continuity test. I’m using the foot pedal to cycle through the various instruments. My ears will be listening for each measurement result, allowing my eyes can stay on my work and my hands can stay on my probes.</p>
<p>And because my application is written in python, changes are as simple as opening and editing my script in a regular text editor, making customizations and tweaks relatively easy.</p>
<iframe width="480" height="270" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1NOQRLI39es" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>I’m really excited about VirtualBench and I’m excited to see where this instrument will go. Got a VirtualBench and want to try it out? I’ve released the Python wrapper in our <a href="https://github.com/armstrap/armstrap-pyvirtualbench">GitHub repository</a>. I’m excited to see what you guys can come up with. Drop me a line if you do something cool.</p>
Mon, 27 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000http://armstrap.org/2015/07/27/pyvirtualbench-controlling-five-instruments-from-a-single-python-application/
http://armstrap.org/2015/07/27/pyvirtualbench-controlling-five-instruments-from-a-single-python-application/Armstrap Eagle Pinout Cards Arrived<p><img src="/img/posts/2015/04/armstrap-eagle-pinout-card-floor.JPG" alt="Armstrap Eagle Pinout Card" class="centered img-responsive" /></p>
<p>One user gave us feedback that we should consider including an <a href="http://armstrap.org/eagle">Armstrap Eagle</a> pinout diagram card in the shipment box. You asked, we delivered. Effective immediately (until supplies last), all Armstrap Eagle shipments will include a small card that outlines the board’s pinout. It’s just another way we are improving ourselves.</p>
<p>If you already have your Armstrap Eagle board and you don’t have the pinout diagram card, you can get the pinout in the <a href="http://docs.armstrap.org/en/latest/hardware-overview.html#armstrap-eagle">documentation section</a>.</p>
<p>If you have feedback, let us know. We have a <a href="http://community.armstrap.org/">community section</a> where makers and entrepreneurs just like you can share their ideas and help make the site better for everyone.</p>
<p>Thumbs up to <a href="http://www.vistaprint.com">Vistaprint</a> for the great quality and speedy turnaround time.</p>
<p><img src="/img/posts/2015/04/armstrap-eagle-pintout-card.JPG" alt="Armstrap Eagle Pinout Card" class="centered img-responsive" /></p>
Fri, 17 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000http://armstrap.org/pinout/2015/04/17/eagle-pinout-cards-arrived/
http://armstrap.org/pinout/2015/04/17/eagle-pinout-cards-arrived/pinoutSurviving Slashdot and Hacker News<p>We were recently featured on the front of <a href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/04/07/1837249/armstrap-claims-to-make-arm-prototyping-easier-video">Slashdot</a> and then got picked up by <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9338322">Hacker News</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/04/07/1837249/armstrap-claims-to-make-arm-prototyping-easier-video?continuous_video=1#ooid=NnYnZjdDrAEMtaUyMcf_UqgmKRmkKvmn"><img src="/img/posts/2015/04/slashdot-video-thumbnail.png" alt="Armstrap on Slashdot" /></a></p>
<p>Despite the barrage of hits that came to the site, armstrap.org never suffered an outage. This is in part thanks to our site being hosted on <a href="https://github.com/armstrap/armstrap.github.io">Github</a> via <a href="https://pages.github.com/">Github Pages</a>.</p>
<p>Thank you also goes out to the team at VOV Technology, who successfully build the boards corresponding to the orders that came shortly afterwards. Many people don’t realize that VOV is experimenting with build-to-order boards. That is, there are no stockpile of already-made ready-to-ship Armstrap boards. The boards are built, tested and shipped as they are ordered.</p>
<p>We will be spending the next few weeks improving our documentation and getting-started experience, particularly on the Windows platform. Thank you to everyone who gave feedback in the <a href="community.armstrap.org">community</a>.</p>
Tue, 14 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000http://armstrap.org/2015/04/14/surviving-slashdot-and-hackernews/
http://armstrap.org/2015/04/14/surviving-slashdot-and-hackernews/SXSW Time<h1 id="armstrap-will-be-at-sxsw-create1">Armstrap will be at <a href="http://sxsw.com/exhibitions/sx-create">SXSW Create</a>!</h1>
<p><img src="/img/posts/2015/03/sxcreate_logo-dates-location_cmyk-b.png" alt="SXSW Create" class="centered img-responsive" /></p>
<p><strong>Dates:</strong> March 13–15, 2015</p>
<p><strong>Hours:</strong> 11:00am–6:00pm</p>
<p><strong>Location:</strong> City Terrace of the Long Center (701 W. Riverside)</p>
<h2 id="this-event-is-free-and-open-to-the-public">This event is FREE and Open to the Public</h2>
<p>If you are in the Austin area, be sure to stop by our SXSW booth. We plan on demoing some armstrap boards, have programming contests, and give away prizes. We are located near the entrance of the Palmer Events Center.</p>
<p><img src="/img/posts/2015/03/sxsw-armstrap-booth.png" alt="Armstrap Booth" class="centered img-responsive" /></p>
Thu, 12 Mar 2015 00:00:00 +0000http://armstrap.org/sxsw/2015/03/12/sxsw%20booth/
http://armstrap.org/sxsw/2015/03/12/sxsw%20booth/sxswFast and Furious Upgrades<p>We’ve been busy upgrading…pretty much everything.</p>
<p><img src="/img/posts/2014/11/fast_and_furious_6.jpg" alt="Fast and Furious Upgrades" class="centered img-responsive" /></p>
<p>The armstrap.org site is composed of two sections: a blog section and a community section. Both sections have been upgraded and are now insanely fast and much more scalable.</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>The blog section used to be an Amazon EC2 Linux VM with 512MB of RAM hosting WordPress. That was fine as long as traffic was low. When traffic got high, the machine would crash due to memory constraints. Finally, when a failed WordPress update took down the php-engine (the engine used to run WordPress), we looked at other, easier to maintain blog engines. We settled on <a href="http://jekyllrb.com">jekyll</a> (hosted on <a href="http://jekyllrb.com/docs/github-pages/">github page</a>) because it was easy to use and much more scalable. All posts are now simple markdown text files used to generate static html pages.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>The Community section also got a major upgrade. We went from an Amazon EC2 single-core 4GB of RAM HD-based Linux VM to a Microsoft Azure dual-core 8GB of RAM SSD-based Linux VM. This has helped significantly improve the performance of the community site. The software behind the community site, <a href="http://www.discourse.org">Discourse</a>, also got an upgrade.</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>We hope you enjoy the improvements.</p>
Tue, 11 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000http://armstrap.org/upgrades/2014/11/11/site%20upgrades/
http://armstrap.org/upgrades/2014/11/11/site%20upgrades/upgradesWhy One Community Member Switched from Arduino to the Armstrap Eagle<p><img src="/img/posts/2014/08/hoss-eagle-breadboard.jpg" alt="Hoss Development Setup" class="centered img-responsive" /></p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I came over to Armstrap from Arduino because I was growing increasingly frustrated with the IDE and toolchain. Don’t get me wrong, I love Arduino and how it’s enabling beginners to really get their hands dirty in electronics and programming without needing to know the ins and outs of using a compiler or flashing an MCU, but when you move from trying to learn how something works or doing a few simple routines to trying to use advanced features of a specific chip, it can start to get cumbersome.” // Hoss, Armstrap community member</p>
</blockquote>
Wed, 20 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000http://armstrap.org/2014/08/20/why-one-community-member-switched-from-arduino-to-armstrap/
http://armstrap.org/2014/08/20/why-one-community-member-switched-from-arduino-to-armstrap/Supermechanical Loves Armstrap<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ApWAGwy-xMI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""> </iframe>
Tue, 13 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000http://armstrap.org/2014/05/13/supermechanical-loves-armstrap/
http://armstrap.org/2014/05/13/supermechanical-loves-armstrap/The Importance of Easy Manufacturing<p>What <a href="http://www.digikey.com/en/articles/techzone/2013/jun/life-after-pi">experts predicted</a> has finally happened. People are using the <a href="http://beagleboard.org/Products/BeagleBone+Black">BeagleBone Black</a> and <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a> for more than just prototyping. They are using them as critical pieces to their deployed solution.</p>
<p>There’s just one problem. These tiny all-in-one mini computers were never designed to be deployed in an end-product.</p>
<p><img src="/img/posts/2014/03/beaglebone-black-assembly.png" alt="BeagleBone Black Assembly" class="centered img-responsive" /></p>
<p><a href="http://mx.mouser.com/new/embedded-solutions/beagleboneblack">Companies that sell</a> the BeagleBone Black are now reporting huge backlogs totaling <a href="http://mx.mouser.com/ProductDetail/CircuitCo/BB-BBLK-000/?qs=%2fha2pyFadugh6wNMONnDuAbTwbrIHVw4R%2f%252bth5Q2M%2fX2Gs60muroNw%3d%3d">14,000 units</a>. It’s really hard to get a hold of these boards and according to Gerald Coley, the designer of the BeagleBone Black and systems engineer at Texas Instrument (the company sponsoring the BeagleBone Black), the problem is not going away anytime soon.</p>
<p>Gerald <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/beagleboard/Z3JfUIkxOl8[101-125-false]">writes</a>…</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have doubled our production over the last two months to 3,000 per week. But that is about as good as it is going to get. We still have people sucking up 100s of boards for use in products and we have not found a way to stop that. We are building them and we are shipping them as fast as we can. They just aren’t getting to people that we want to have them.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The BeagleBone Black and Raspberry Pi fall into a category of electronics I call the put-everything-on-a-pcb-and-make-it-cheap type of device. They don’t need to worry about drivers because they have their own on-board operating system. These solutions make prototyping a joy because they offer fertile soil to grow the seeds of a maker’s dream.</p>
<p>There is just one big problem: these solutions do not scale.</p>
<p>These all-in-one boards seduce entrepreneurs, who find themselves at a loss when it comes time to scale their solution. Naturally, these startups cannot reproduce any of these low cost devices and preserve their low price point. Yes, they are open source and that’s a big win. But if you cannot scale your solution, why would any startup consider using one of these all-in-one devices? Why would your core component be tied to another company’s supply chain?</p>
<p>Armstrap is different. <strong>We care about the ability to mass produce your solution.</strong> That’s why the <a href="/eagle">Armstrap Eagle</a> is made using 0805-sized components on a simple 2-layer PCB. They can easily be recreated by hand if need be. And thanks to its open-source license and to services like <a href="https://oshpark.com/">OSH Park</a> and <a href="http://www.oshstencils.com/">OSH Stencils</a> anyone can remix the board and hand-solder a new prototype. If your Kickstarter is massively successful, then you can make the adjustments necessary to lower costd: for example eliminating the integrated JTAG debugger if its not required.</p>
<p>Rather than giving makers everything on a board and slapping an operating system on top, <strong>we embrace the hardware and focus on making it easier to develop, debug and deploy your solution.</strong></p>
<p>Want to buy an Armstrap Eagle? We <a href="/eagle">sell them on the website</a>, however, they can be built by hand too. More on that later.</p>
Tue, 18 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000http://armstrap.org/2014/03/18/the-importance-of-easy-manufacturing/
http://armstrap.org/2014/03/18/the-importance-of-easy-manufacturing/It Works on a MAC<p><img src="/img/posts/2013/12/armstrap-mac-featured.jpg" alt="armstrap on a mac" class="centered img-responsive" /></p>
<p>Quarter by quarter, news outlets are reporting that <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417655,00.asp">PC sales are either flat</a> or plummeting. HP just announced <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2428865,00.asp">another layoff</a> in an on-going effort to restructure and reinvent themselves. Dell went as far as to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/connieguglielmo/2013/10/30/you-wont-have-michael-dell-to-kick-around-anymore/">convert themselves to a private company</a>. Since we are not in an economic depression, all of these articles hint at one fundamental fact–Mac sales are rising.</p>
<p>When I look at the options embedded developers have on the Mac, the outcome is grim. External JTAG devices require a proprietary driver to enumerate and those JTAG vendors only ship drivers for the PC. That shiny new MacBook Pro can’t do any real-world embedded development without a lot of hackery. It’s no wonder that products like the <a href="http://beagleboard.org/products/beaglebone%20black">BeagleBone Black</a> and the <a href="http://www.raspberrypi.org/">Raspberry Pi</a> exist. It’s easier to put an entire operating system on a chip than to create a new driver stack for a different ecosystem, <a href="http://www.apple.com/legal/macapps/stdeula/">riddled with lawyers</a> and politics. No drivers are required when your embedded board ships with an entire operating system on board. But what happens to those developers who want to be close to the hardware? These developers don’t want an operating system in the way of their time-critical projects.</p>
<p>Armstrap is different.</p>
<p><strong>Armstrap boards don’t abstract away the hardware, they embrace it.</strong> Rather than putting a TCP/IP between your code and the hardware, Armstrap boards connect to your project directly via a standard USB cable. There are no external adapters to worry about. Debugging is done on any platform (Windows, Mac or Linux) because Armstrap boards enumerate as a tty serial device, utilizing the standard USB driver stack. Debugging is ultra fast and snappy thanks to the heavy lifting done by the open source debugger that comes integrated on every Armstrap board.</p>
<p>Finally, ARM development that actually works on a Mac.</p>
Tue, 31 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000http://armstrap.org/2013/12/31/it-works-on-a-mac/
http://armstrap.org/2013/12/31/it-works-on-a-mac/Documentation Facelift<p><img src="/img/posts/2013/12/jens-schott-knudsen-flickr.jpg" alt="Guy in Subway Reading" class="centered img-responsive" /></p>
<p>I think that for any open-hardware community to thrive, that community has to have insanely-great documentation. Great documentation is not just in the form of web pages on a screen, but also PDF and ePub documentation that you can take on-the-go. Documentation teaches others how to use your product and learning and discovery is a big part of Armstrap.</p>
<p>Like most engineers, I find documentation hard. They are great to read, but difficult to write. Why? Because too often, documentation becomes a war of styles, tags, placement and deployment. Like programming, documentation is riddled with rules and getting the simplest projects off the ground requires an enormous amount of effort. This enormous effort has nothing to do with the message you are trying to convey. Rather than helping you, they stand in your way, forcing you to learn their quirks. Writing anything will take time because the author has to overcome these hurdles. Luckily, two technologies exists that can alleviate much of this pain–<a href="http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html">reStructuredText</a> and <a href="https://readthedocs.org/">readthedocs.org</a>.</p>
<p>reStructuredText is a markdown language that is incredibly rich in syntax and easy to learn. It does a fantastic job hiding those complex XML/HTML/DocBook tags, giving authors the freedom to express themselves in a plain-ol’ text editor. Unlike those tag-based approaches to documentation, reStructuredText has no tags. That’s right. None. reStructuredText uses an intelligent approach to documentation where styling and formatting is inferred based off text spacing and layout. If you have five minutes, check out the <a href="http://docutils.sourceforge.net/docs/user/rst/quickref.html">reStructuredText cheatsheet</a> and the <a href="http://rst.ninjs.org/">online editor</a>. I found it amazing how fast and easy it was to learn. Try doing this with DocBooks.</p>
<p>But what about deployment? Getting documentation written is one challenge but deployment can be a greater challenge. Generating HTML, PDF, and ePub for consumers can be an equally difficult task. That’s where Read the Docs come in.</p>
<p>The readthedocs.org service is amazing! In a nutshell, they translate reStructuredText from a github repository into beautiful, clean documentation. They automatically generate HTML, PDF and ePub front-ends that make documentation kind of fun. It’s free and it looks fantastic, even on a mobile device. Did I say this happens automatically? If you have five minutes, check out their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&amp;v=oJsUvBQyHBs">screencast</a>.</p>
<p>We recently revamped our <a href="http://docs.armstrap.org/">tutorials and getting started guides</a> to use reStructuredText and readthedocs.org. In the future, we plan on getting more tutorials and guides published using these technologies. Documentation is fun again!</p>
Mon, 23 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000http://armstrap.org/2013/12/23/documentation-facelift/
http://armstrap.org/2013/12/23/documentation-facelift/